Chapter 1800 1800. Hidden Monsters
While this was the case for most of the wood that Walker saw and stored away while following the massive carved path the sand tornado made, he was unsure why there was so much. It was odd that so many trees would be within this circle of the desert.
From what Walker could recall from the map, he knew that there was enough desert around to take up a massive region of the Fel empire central stretch. But if the desert had been expanding longer than they knew, then this made a ring of sand for miles that had long been taken over. It also showed that the things that were left under the sands might still remain.
\'Heat tempered quartz
This is a quartz rock that has been constantly baked under the sands and sun. due to the fact that it was covered by the sand, it was not broken up by winds over time. Instead, it was condensed with the earth mana and heat causing it to change itself naturally. The fire and earth elemental uses for this make it an idea dual elemental staff material. The stone can better channel the two elemental manas for fusion skills. It can not store the mana though, it is just a conductor.\'
This was one chunk of stone that had drawn interest. Ignus had felt the strange fire mana that was able to travel throughout. But he could also tell that it was not just one thing. Upon seeing it, he had pulled Walker to him and made him use the all around appraisal on it. Just because they were removed didn\'t mean that they could not make the most of their travels.
There was no way that the army would be catching up to the sand tornado. The only one that could easily do that was Ventus, and she was not in the state to do so. But following the path was part of their quest. They had to follow the trail and see what was dug up, whether it was good like these things, or bad, didn\'t seem to matter.
\'Condensed black sand
A small pebble of magnetic sands that have been forcefully held together by their unique mixture of manas. It is rare for atoms to appear within a desert, however, the trapped water, wind, fire, and other minuscule amounts of mana have created a unique kind of sand. The lightning affinity is a perfect fusion of manas to create this.
The condense black sand can be further turned in to a proper magnet which is useful for blacksmiths, runes, and other things. Some unique mages could give half their life to gather enough of them to create an entire staff. This would greatly strengthen their possibility or ability to use lightning.
These are very unstable though. The addition of other manas or any tampering will cause the black sands to forcefully repel each other. This could cause wounds and other internal injuries due to the manas leaving the condensed lumps of black sand.\'
When Walker read this, he made sure to instruct everyone around not to mess with the clumps of black sand. He rushed to gather them ahead of everyone to make sure that they would be isolated. But this also brought more to his mind than before.
There was a chance that he could strengthen his ability to make lightning with this. Yet, his mind drifted to the wandering blacksmith. Such a material was created here because of the unique occurrence of rainstorms that might or might not happen within a year of the desert. It was so rare that these were buried deeply under dunes of sand. Only found when entire dunes were torn in to by the power of a sand tornado.
This being the case, the magnetic black sand might be the perfect material for the wandering blacksmith to use. He could experiment and potentially create something that no one else had before. Let alone anyone that might be able to use such unique items crafted from it. There could be system users that might now have a chance to grow because of this unique find. Too valuable to mess around with for now. Just another thing Walker would need to hold on to for a longer time.
While some of the Fel empire angels tried to take one or two, Walker made sure to tell them the all around appraisal. He found that the more he shared with them, the more cooperative they were. It was easy enough to show them that he was just being kind by sharing this, but after they understood the dangers, they would not play with fire. They did have a sense for what they really needed to do.
The positives didn\'t end there, the Fel angels had even started to call him over. "Fellow researcher Walker, there is a different bone here. Can you appraise it?" Some of the Fel angels had even recognized that Walker must be a researcher to be looking at these skills and such too. It was a sign of respect. The term, fellow researcher, was showing that they recognized the things that were being learned and shared with them. It was respectful in many ways.
\'Sand whale bone
This is a small rib bone of a long endangered species of monster. The sand whales were once the hardest to defeat monsters of deserts. They can tunnel through said using the unique small scales on their body that was reminiscent of a dragons. They did hold a small amount of dragon blood too which led to this evolution over time.
They could store large amounts of water and hibernate deep in the sands for many years. However, they were not carnivores, they ate both meat and plants. Their favorite food was the rolling cactus. A very quick growing small cactus that would roll on top of the dunes with the winds. Many monsters could not eat them because of the tough spines but the sand whale was able to.
This bone is ideal for crafting small tools. Many older races that hunted sand whales would use the bones for tools if they managed to hunt one. Those races no longer exist while some are in worse shape or have changed and migrated to other lands.\'
This was a very good historical find. But what stuck out to Walker as he read the all around appraisal allowed was the term, long endangered. This meant that these monsters were not extinct. It also meant that they were able to survive whatever was happening within the desert. If this was the case, then they would be able to hibernate with the moisture within their bodies long enough to live through these dangerous times.
"I did not expect such a thing to exist. I believed that this would just be a bone of an ancient sand worm. Or maybe another escorted monster. Sand whales are not something we believed to have existed. A whale had been seen before off the coast, that was expected since other records were proven of them existing. But a sand whale was a child\'s creation to us. A fantasy." the Fel angel that found the bone was more interested in the appraisal than the bone itself and let Walker take it.
The others that heard what the angel told them about his find stopped and listened carefully. They all reacted with their own theories. The conversation just grew more as they wondered if they would see such an endangered species. However, they also brought out their own worries. The monster could easily eat them if it existed. The single rib bone was small but it was part of a much larger whole.
The added danger sobered some of the soldiers that had begun to relax too much. They had not stopped worrying about the mysteries of the desert. Some of them were sure that the dangers would only grow as they approached the ruins. Yet, none of them had thought that massive monsters even bigger than the largest saw toothed sand work they had seen already were around. It made everyone sure that the desert was unexplored for very good reasons. How many people had disappeared in the desert because a monster had swallowed up an entire army? Would they even be able to hunt something so large? How would the dragons handle it? Too many questions came to be.
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